A History of the World in Six Plagues

With clear-eyed research and lush prose, A History of the World in Six Plagues examines humankind’s battles with epidemic disease and their outsized role in deepening inequality along racial, ethnic, class, and gender lines.

Princeton-trained historian Edna Bonhomme’s examination of humanity’s disastrous treatment of pandemic disease takes us across place and time from Port-au-Prince to Tanzania, and from plantation-era America to our modern COVID-19-scarred world to unravel shocking truths about the patterns of discrimination in the face of disease.

In the vein of Medical Apartheid and Killing the Black Body. A rising call to action.

Endorsements

"An incredible, humane, insightful account of humankind’s battles with epidemic disease, and their outsized role in deepening inequality along racial, ethnic, class, and gender lines." — Ed Yong, Pulitzer Prize winner

"A breathtaking journey through the intertwined histories of contagions and systemic inequities that have shaped our history." — Uché Blackstock, New York Times bestselling author

"A tour de force... will change the way people think about public health and histories of medicine." — Dr. Tiffany N. Florvil, author of Mobilizing Black Germany.